Rainouts

Last night, during a rain delay in the Braves-Giants game, I was muttering about trying to think of an idea for today's blog. Lisa said, "Why don't you write about rain delays?

What a great idea! Very smart.

And I thought I first liked her just because she was so cute and stylish!

OK. Rainouts. Let's do that. 

By the way, the Braves game (which should have never started because it was played in a pouring rain) was suspended and will be finished today. Go figure.

Enough about that. So, after her comment, I've been mulling over some notable rain delay/rain out moments in Concord Choppers history or from when I was President of the baseball league. 

Here are five scenarios of interest.

Dried Out 
One weekend, we registered to play in a tournament at a near-by ballpark. The fine print of the tournament rules said "Two Game Minimum." We showed up on Friday night and soundly defeated one of the home-standing teams.

On Saturday, we beat a visiting team and, then, played home run derby against a second team from the hosting ballpark. I think the final score might've been something like 18-2 when the umps called it.

That night, as the team gathered for a post-game meal (we often went out to dinner as a group on tournament weekends and after Friday practices), East Tennessee experienced one of those typical summertime line of rain storms.

Sunday dawned partly cloudy (if a bit humid). I logged on to double check the game time for the championship round and I saw a notice the tournament championship round had been cancelled. 

There was maybe a 20 percent chance of rain that day.

So, I picked up the phone and called the tournament director to inquire. "Oh, yeah, it's rained out (clearing his throat). After all the rain we had last night and with the rain we are going to get today, the fields are in horrible shape. No way we could play."

You could tell from his voice the story really wasn't the rain. They didn't want to see some interloper team come to the their ballpark and take home a trophy. So, let the history show, we were dried out.

By the way, on that Sunday, it never rained.

The Grounds Crew
I was always proud of how the group of coaches in our age group were always willing to work. When we reached a new level, we generally left the fields better than we found them. And part of this work ethic related to getting fields ready on soggy spring Saturdays. 

We were putting the finishing touches on such an effort early one Saturday morning. The fields had taken on a serious amount of water overnight. Only a herculean effort of our maintenance chief, assisted by a number of commissioners/coaches, made it possible to get in a full slate of games (slightly delayed). 

As one commish was finalizing work on his field, a team showed up and a nattily dressed coach sidled up to the Commish and said. "Um, do you know when the grounds crew will be finished? I'd like to warm up my team before the game."

"WE, including YOU," the Commish retorted, "ARE the grounds crew."

Clearly, that coach was "too busy" when the Commish put out the call for warm bodies to work on the fields that morning. I don't think he was asked back to coach during the next season.

Run for the Hills
We were playing a league game on our Field 6 late one Saturday when a breeze started to blow in from the outfield. Before long, the wind picked up and the skies darkened. Our game continued.

Within minutes, we started hearing rumbles of thunder off to the west. We mentioned something to our umpire but he was not deterred. Play on.

Just then, we saw a lightning flash and heard a a crack of thunder. I looked at my assistant coaches and we all agreed. I said to Blue, "We're out of here." And we quickly gathered up all our gear and started to "run for the hills."

If you're familiar with the layout of Farragut Baseball, Inc. you might recall Field 6 is the third field "up top." Surrounded by tall trees, it sits roughly a hundred yards or so from the parking lots.

With ball buckets and bat bags in hand, we made a sprint to our cars. We only got slightly drenched before we were safely inside our vehicles.

Turface
A best friend of any grounds crew is drying compound (think: granular kitty litter). One brand you hear about is Diamond Dry. The one we used during my time at FB, Inc is called Turface. It works great but it isn't cheap.

Our maintenance chief had worked a deal with a local trucking firm that was fairly ingenious. The trucks would hit the road to deliver a load and, on the way back, they would load up with Turface. They brought back truckloads and the company sold it to area baseball leagues as a side business. 

And we tapped into that supply chain to keep our fields dry.

Our baseball league was made up of really good men and women who volunteered to spend their time to coach during that era. I'd say 98 percent. And then, you had the other 2 percent. 

Let's just say: those guys weren't in it for the greater good.

After a particular wet period one spring, one of the two percent guys emptied an entire pallet of Turface on one of the fields to dry it up enough so he could hold practice.  When word got back to the league office, he got a phone call from the Prez telling him that manuever cost our not-for-profit organization about $6,000 in product. 

And if it ever happened again, he'd be coaching somewhere else.

Message sent. Message received. 

Metal Bat
I'll close with this story, since the idea for this blog came from the Mrs.

We were playing another weekend tournament when we had to quickly take shelter under a picnic pavillion during a rain storm. Eventually, we went to our cars and left the premises when we realized there was no let-up in sight. That tournament turned out to be a complete wash out.

But before it ended and before we left, one of the more cheeky players on our team ran over to Lisa and handed her his metal bat. "Here, will you hold this?"

Metal bat. Thunderstorm. 

I think she put it under one of the picnic tables. As we established earlier in this post, she's a very smart woman.

JG